Lime's Photograph (27 page)

Hearing the spectators’ ecstatic applause, he stood up, leaving
El Pais
on the table.

“Thank you for the remarkable experience,” he said, raised his glass and drained it. “Don Alfonzo must have second sight. Asking me to arrive specifically at the time of the third bull was a stroke of genius. It is seldom that
el arte de torear
really is an art. Goodbye, señor Lime. It has been a pleasure talking to you.”

He left, trailing a plume of cigar smoke, a small, stooped man with big secrets. The elated, satisfied crowd began pouring out of the exits and swept him along, and he vanished as if I had never sat talking with him. I looked through the window and watched as the throng gathered by the main gate and shortly afterwards a group of men came out with the young Andalusian on their shoulders. He looked happy and alarmed, as if the mass of people posed a greater threat than the two bulls he had killed with such honour and courage that afternoon. He held the ears and tails proudly above his head, shook them and then threw them into the air. How simple and straightforward life was for him. He didn’t fear death, he had been carried aloft by the discriminating aficionados who frequented Las Ventas, he was on the threshold of his life and took it for granted that youth, beauty and good fortune would be his for ever.

I raised my glass and drained the last drop of cognac, wished him good luck and carefully opened
El Pais
. I was standing in my little alcove as people streamed past, paying no attention to me. A few sheets of white paper, carefully folded in half, had been slipped inside the middle pages. I was itching to read them, but I put them back and, when the crowd began to thin out, I left with
El Pais
under my arm to find a quiet place where I could delve into yet another strange aspect of my past.

I went to our Sunday-quiet office on Paseo de la Castellana. For most of the year, the office was busy even on Sundays. The insatiable appetite for photographs of the rich and famous didn’t let up, but in August we put operations in Madrid on the back burner and let the London office deal with business over the weekends. Most of our employees spent their holidays far away from the stifling, smoggy heat that enveloped the city day after day. On the short taxi ride from Las Ventas to the office, my body stuck to the imitation leather of the back seat as if glued to it and when I got out, the back of my t-shirt was soaked through.

I let myself in, and met the dry coolness of the air conditioning that hummed faintly. I pulled my t-shirt out of my trousers and flapped it like a girl at dance class, and fetched a cold cola from the fridge in the kitchen. Apart from the humming, the office was completely quiet, and the computers sat covered and silent. I wandered through the empty rooms and had a quick look in Oscar’s office. His cluttered desk – usually covered with dozens of copies of photographs, glossy magazines, coffee mugs, long computer print-outs and full ashtrays – was tidy and polished. The telephone and computer looked abandoned, although I could see the light flashing on his answering machine. The large cupboards in the archive room were stuffed full of negatives
and copies of photographs, but the ones that were most in demand were stored digitally on computer, ready to be transferred when a newspaper or a magazine needed a particular photograph. We dealt mostly in photographs of famous people, but we were also able to provide a good picture of a Goya in the Prado if needed. We could send a photograph round the world via the telephone network in seconds. The magic touch of the information age.

I put off reading the report for a while, and pottered about savouring the calm and the cool air, but eventually I sat down in my office. I left the door open so I could look out across the big, open room where The secretaries and assistants worked and on into Oscar’s office. I felt at home and yet a bit like a guest who shouldn’t have the key to the domain of these diligent people. The rooms were still part of my life, I owned a share in them, and yet I didn’t belong there any more. I put the sheets of paper in front of me, lit a cigarette and began to read with growing fascination and astonishment as the stark words took me back in time.

Surveillance Report PCE/13/05 March 1976.14.45.

Prepared by (blanked out). Translated from English by (blanked out).

Participants in conversation: Victor Ljubimov, approx. 40, cultural attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Paris, entered on a Cuban passport via the Portuguese border 23rd February 1976, staying at Hotel Victoria (see enclosed copy of hotel registration). Unknown man, mid-20s, tall, bearded, hippie-type. Conversation took place in English. Some interference noise, otherwise technical equipment functioned excellently. However, first four minutes of the conversation missing. Surveillance group PCE/13 is of the opinion that this part of the conversation took place in the entrance hall beyond
the range of microphone 3. Surveillance was also restricted by a TV set in the sitting room broadcasting a film. After processing the tape, the major part of the conversation has been deciphered. Having studied the recording, the service’s language expert A/24 reports that the subjects speak good and grammatically correct English, but it is not their first language. The hippie speaks English with an accent defined by language expert A/24 as German despite his attempted use of some American jargon. Ljubimov’s English is fluent with British pronunciation, reports language expert A/24 having listened to sections of the tapes without prior knowledge of the subjects’ identities.

Ljubimov arrived 15.45 at the cover address on Calle Princesa no. 12. In accordance with Directive 11 with authorisation from Classified Court Division 6, in agreement with the owner of the neighbouring apartment, a good patriot with many years membership of the Movement, electronic surveillance equipment had been installed.

The cover address is owned by (name blanked out), whose connection to the illegal underground trade union, Comisiones Obreras, is well documented. In the light of current investigations, the recommendation remains to refrain from arrest and questioning of (name blanked out).

15.58, interlocutor arrived at Calle Princesa no. 12. As the identity of the subject is currently unknown, the transcription designates the subject Hippie because of his long hair. Surveillance group C/3 was unable to obtain a photo of Hippie as he apparently left the building via another exit. Surveillance group C/3 will continue investigations in an effort to establish his identity and official business in Spain. Gives the impression
of being a tourist, but is athletic and clean despite the long-haired appearance.

Obviously they hadn’t succeeded in establishing Hippie’s identity. “Tall and long-haired”. That could describe thousands of young Westerners who swarmed to Madrid, enjoying the good life in the 1970s when the dollar and Deutsche Mark bought a lot of pesetas. I looked out across the Madrid rooftops and thought about how, at the height of the cold war, bureaucrats all over the world churned out report after report like this one. Could they be trusted at all? Hadn’t it always been the case that the reports of secret agents were often completely unreliable, because it was in their own interest to turn each little triviality into a suspicious element, into a sinister piece of a larger pattern. This was the way in which the secret services ensured that their budgets, and therefore their staff, continued to grow. It’s expensive to run a police state.

But the conversation must be genuine. Or was it? There was no way of knowing. I lit another cigarette and read on. At least now I was spared the bureaucratic, tortuous phrasing of the preamble. The conversation was presented like the dialogue in a screenplay. All it needed was the shooting directions.

Ljubimov:… have you any idea if Comisiones Obreras will get the workers out on the streets on the 1st of May?

Hippie: The comrades are doing great work and it looks like they’re following the strategy which the Central Committee in Moscow supports too. It’s a question of mobilising and forcing PSOE onto the defensive.

Ljubimov: What about the strikes next month?

Hippie: All the indications are that they’re going to be nationwide. Virtually a general strike.

Ljubimov: Have they got enough funds?

Hippie: There’s a shortage of funds. No doubt about that.

Ljubimov: I can get more. I’ll need a couple of days. We’ll have them transferred here via Paris, through the usual channels.

Hippie: Then there’s the student movement. The anarchist groups are strong and are pushing the Party into the background. We need funds for that fight too.

Ljubimov: Moscow’s rich, but we can’t print the stuff.

Hippie: It’s now that the battle has to be won. It’s only a question of time before the PCE is legalised, so we’ve got to come from a position of strength. Otherwise the Socialists will run with the people. We’re in a revolutionary situation.

Ljubimov: Moscow attaches importance to both the strike and the 1st of May. That’s where the door to this rotten system has to be kicked in.

Hippie: I’m on the scene. Students and workers will be on the streets together on the 1st. Count on it.

Ljubimov: OK. Spain must be won.

Hippie: Then there are the Basques …

Ljubimov: Yes.

Hippie: My contacts say that they’re prepared for a military offensive at the same time as the demonstrations and strikes.

Ljubimov: Yes.

Hippie: Chaos.

Ljubimov: Yes.

Hippie: The fascists will close ranks. The first wave of repression will be violent, but it’ll be the final convulsions. Then the situation will be revolutionary for real …

Ljubimov: Moscow has decided that the correct strategy is to enter into the transitional phase in such a way that the PCE can be made a legal party.

Hippie: Ah-ha.

Ljubimov: The plan is to smuggle Carrillo in first and let him be here illegally as a symbol, and then when the time is ripe to let La Pasionaria return completely openly.

Hippie: They’ll never go along with that.

Ljubimov: We think they will. We don’t believe that terrorism should be a practical strategy in Spain’s current circumstances. Moscow sees the correct strategy as a combination of winning over the workers at the workplace and the general population by participating in the parliamentary process which we believe will come. We must be there when fascism is replaced by bourgeois democracy. At least at first.

Hippie: My impression is that, as the situation stands, Berlin doesn’t see the Basque struggle as terrorism, but as a legitimate armed struggle.

Ljubimov: We are possibly only partially in disagreement with the comrades, but at the moment we consider the legal course to be the correct one. There will be elections. The PCE must be in a strong position at those elections. If not, we will reappraise the situation.

Hippie: Misha thinks I should pursue my contacts with ETA.

Ljubimov: We have no quarrel with that.

Hippie: We’re still training them, and we’re linking up with the Czechoslovak comrades on a new consignment, but that means we’ve got to activate the cell in Pamplona.

Ljubimov: That’s fine, but we’d like you to try to get more information about the student milieu and I’m also interested in names in the press who we can count on standing shoulder to shoulder with the working classes when the situation comes to a head. That’s the assignment we think you should concentrate on. It’s co-ordinated with Karlhorst.

Hippie: I’m on the job.

Ljubimov: Good.

I went out to the kitchen, got a can of beer and went back to my office to think about what I had just read. If you knew the sequence of events, a pattern emerged. The illegal, communist trade unions,
Comisiones Obreras
, had called a general strike and huge demonstrations for 1 May 1976, year zero after General Franco’s death. In April of that year, Spain had been rocked by the biggest wave of strikes for 40 years, which had helped to overthrow the old fascist guard and pave the way for a more pro-reform administration lead by Adolfo Suárez.

The old communist leader, Santiago Carrillo, returned to Madrid concealed under a wig later that year, and in 1977 the Spanish Communist Party was legalised and the legendary leader from the Civil War, Dolores Ibárruri – known as La Pasionaria – returned home in triumph. It was typical of the communists that they considered not only the fascists as their principal enemies, but also the social democrats in the PSOE. The reason for this went right back to the 1930s and the Civil War, when the communists fought against the anarchists, who had always been dear to my heart, and also the socialists. The centre-right had won the general election in June 1977, but the PCE had made a strong showing, although not nearly as good as the PSOE. The communists’ strategy had failed. Spain did not become a communist country, but a liberal democracy.

I understood the references to their Czechoslovak comrades. They were to supply the plastic explosive, Semtex, which ETA used in manufacturing its bombs. The GDR had trained and equipped terrorists all over the world. The Palestinians, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army Faction in West Germany and ETA in Spain. Even though I knew this, reading the transcript still sent a cold shiver down my spine. This had been a European nation which had financed, trained
and given shelter to terrorists from all over the world, while the GDR leadership had persistently claimed that they served only the cause of peace. Misha was, of course, Markus Wolf, who had been head of the GDR’s foreign espionage until shortly before the Wall fell, when he saw which way the wind was blowing and left the service to join the democracy movement in East Germany. I had read that he had published his memoirs but still refused, even in the German courts, to disclose the names of his agents.

I switched on my computer, connected to the internet and did a search under “Karlhorst”. A long list of matches appeared. Karlhorst was the KGB’s old headquarters in the GDR. This was the real centre of power, where even the Stasi were controlled.

I went back to the papers while I drank my beer. It was completely dark outside now, and it seemed as if the warm night air had wrapped the cars down on the busy avenida in cotton wool.